can always check us out 24 hours a day by going to aljazeera.com, where the news continues 24-7. hi, i'm lisa fletcher, and you are in "the stream." birth control pills are taken by millions of women without a second thought. but are there new dangers along with the newer generations of the contraceptive? ♪ >> our digital producer, wajahat ali is here. he is bringing in all of your live feedback. waj so many people take these prescriptions sometimes for decades at a time and some don't bother to ask if there are risks.

>> yeah, a lot of tweets have been coming in . . . and the tweets have been coming in. lot of opinion on this. >> yeah. four out of five sexually active women have taken birth control pills at some point in their life. but a new wave of criticism claims women are under social pressure to take the pill without

fully understanding the effects it has on their health. some say it could even be life threatening, but is this criticism grounded in fact. we're joining by a professor from george washington university, and psychologist, senior legal analyst at rh reality check which offers news and analyst on sexual issues. thanks so all of you for being here. so doctor, i want to start with you. are the first control pills of today vastly different from those say from just a decade ago? >> they are. when birth control pills became

popular in the 60s and '70s, the dosing was really high. it's much higher than what we have today. we also have newer generations of progesterone s which have varying effects of side effects bepenning on the person and what they would like to get out of the pill. and that's where some of the controversy arise. >> and are those like yaz, and yazmine which have all of the lawsuits pending? >> absolutely. what the lawsuits are about are increased occurrence of blood clots. birth control pills do increase your risk of having a blood clot. the question is how much? and the absolute increased risk

is not that high. we do know no matter what it is higher on any birth control pill, and with yaz, and yazmine the increased risk is a little bit higher. ultimately you have to chance that with the risk of a person's -- one there are alternatives, but two, pregnancy is a much higher risk of blood clots that a birth control pill ever would be. >> doctor i want you to jump in here. i know you have concerns. do yours focus more on the physiological health or the mental well-being of women who are on the pill? >> both in fact. >> for the most part women make birth control for one of two reasons. either they have a normal menstrual cycle and they want to

have unfettered sex, and we may be inducing pathology in these otherwise healthy women. and many women come to my office with complaints of low libido and foggy thinking that are relieved once we remove the birth control pill. and from my perspective and my training this is the equivalent of turning off the smoke alarm without putting out the fire. because there are many other ways to approach the imbalance that don't require synthetic hormones. >> our audience is really weighing in . . .

and i'm going to go to you with this question. not everyone is a doctor, do you think the average american women is aware of the potential consequences of the pill? >> i think it depends on the woman. i think that there is a really stark difference in access to health care between women of color and white women. and also low-income women, and middle and upper-class women. so when we talk about this debate, i think it's really important that we not fear monger, because people of color and communities of color have had a very complicated relationship with birth control, whether it be using birth control methods to control their

own reproduction so as not to bare more children that would be forced into slavery during slavery eras, whether it's fear that they would be forcibly sterilelized against their will. and this notion that they should be a little bit more -- they have an obligation to reduce the number of children that they have because those children will ultimately end up on welfare. so there are a host of issues that come into play when we're talking about contraception especially when it pertains to women of color. >> doctor let's get back to some of the physical aspects of this. a women's risk increase if she is on birth control pills, if she is overweight, if she smokes. how does that play into not just your decision when you are

prescribing, but do those factors play enough into a general physician's narrative? >> it absolutely does. i think that every time i have a patient that comes in for a contraceptive consultation, people don't necessarily -- they oftentimes will come in ways i want a birth control pill, but i think really it's my job to offer them all of the different options of birth control, because there's quite a few of them. taking in to account their personal history, family history, their body mass index, and taking into account those things, medications they are taking, certain medications don't work well with the birth control pill and then offering them all of the different options. i think one thing is i think you are right, there is some fallback to the birth control pill because it has been around for a long time and people are

used to it, but we probably should be moving more towards reversible contraception that may have less impact and used in more women. so taking into account their whole system and also what symptoms they have. do they have endometriosis, do things? >> it sounds like i would want to have that consultation with my physician. but your profession has just suggested that the birth control counter. >> yeah. i think the reason they said that is we do think that birth control pills overall for the vast majority of healthy women are safe. however, there is that list of things that we really shouldn't

be -- patients that we shouldn't be prescribing oral contraceptions for. and they think there is a checklist of the different conditions that we can give patients and they can sort of self regulate and self decide am i a good candidate for these or not? now obviously that doesn't take into account the physician patient relationship and a lot of these things do currently need to be prescribed, but i think it would open up more access to a lot of women to good effective birth control. >> because the pill is so common, do you think women sometimes forget that they are actually taking a prescription drug for years or even decades at a time, and what is the consequence of that? >> absolutely. i think it's probably a combination of wide-spread, in my opinion often irresponsible

prescribing, and also direct to consumer advertising, which has a huge impact on perceptions on the part of women when it comes to safety. we have a pretty good understanding of mechanisms by which birth control may be changing bodily functions. they raise things called globulin. they change inflammatory markers, and deplete significant b vitamins which are important especially in a reproductive-age woman, and deplete antioxidants. while it is commendable that say there might be a way to consent, i don't think we have a good way of knowing who are these women who might be sensitive to those biological changes.

>> allison says . . . but a lot of our community knowledge. >> we used to write a tweet about access. does even talking about the risks of the most popular form of contraception threaten that? tweet us your thoughts we'll >> start with one issue ad guests on all sides of the debate. and a host willing to ask the tough questions and you'll get... the inside story ray suarez hosts inside story weekdays at 5pm et / 2pm pt only on al jazeera america >> al jazeera america is a straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing

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we are talking about the birth control pill which revolutionized women's life, but

now some people are calling for alternatives. and the community has not stopped tweeting. >> yeah, i just got a tweet from brenda . . . and here is a great video. >> those who don't have access to adequate information about birth control and how different forms of birth control can have effects on the body, i think that there are some communities who don't receive sufficient reproductive care, prenatal care things like that, and they aren't given information on how birth control is impacted by wait. and

that is really important for communities of color that have disproportionate levels of obesity. >> are alternative forms of birth control less accessible to minority communities? >> i think that health care access in general is a very big color. so when you are talking about a person going to the doctor just expecting she is going to go get the pill because she has seen advertisementments for it, she may be going into a an appoint with the preconceived notion of the birth control that she wants. and if the she is not getting a critical analysis of the various forms of birth control, i think then it becomes a problem, because then you see certain communities that are being

misinformed or mall informed, under informed about the types of contraception that are available to them. but women of color have a very complicated relationship with birth control because of the history of forced sterilization, targeting low income women, women of color with new types of contraception that haven't been well tested, for example. so i think it become really important to make sure we're getting accurate information, wide range of information, and that we're getting information that is catering to the needs of people of color. >> speaking of that, do women know enough about their own bodies, and take enough ownership of their well-being? this >> i think that's an excellent point. i took birth control for 12 years, and before i aimed to

become pregnant, i had to learn a lot about the natural menstrual cycle. and divorcing women from what their hormonal symphony actually looks like every month is a significant consideration, and that's what we're doing when we allow and permit women and condone the long-term prescription of birth control or even more deregulated access, so consideration. >> dr. marco do you want to wrap it up for us? >> i think really the birth control pill has been a great form of birth control for a lot of women but not without risks and controversy, and it's not for everyone, and there are so many great alternatives. and i would encourage people to try to get access and talk to doctors about the alternatives and not be scared of them. >> thanks. good night, everyone. ♪

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